Harvard Business Publishing

My answers are (1) No, Outlook is not a social network -- any more than was a phone directory. And (2) Yes my company and I both use networks and related tools. I doubt a network 'war' will emerge since users and applications are various, splintered, overlapping -- social, professional, local/global, college (temporary) and interest-specific (Chowhound for foodies, Thinkpads.com for users).

Zoominfo has another take: Zipi is a free Outlook plugin that gives users access to 20 million professionals in a database gleaned from publicly available Web data. People can pay for access or "share" their contacts to extend their reach/network.
Unlike a social network, business people need to go BEYOND the people they already know, for sales/marketing/recruiting/research.

Interesting post. Xobni is a great example of organizing/mining information that you already have, and creating value from it. It exposes the de facto communication network in your email, whereas with LinkedIn or facebook, the network has to be built via invitation.

There are pros and cons to both approaches, and I don't think the answer to your question is either/or. I depend on Outlook and LinkedIn. Recently I've started to use both Xobni and the LinkedIn Outlook add-in. Both excellent and recommended, in spite of some bugs in the latter. (I've been assured LinkedIn is actively working on these; they have fixed some already.) I understand Xobni intends to create versions that work in other email clients, too. More interesting to me than Microsoft buying Xobni is the idea of LinkedIn buying Xobni. Xobni already integrates some LinkedIn info.

Thanks to David for pointing out ZoomInfo, which is also an interesting player in this space.

There is great merit in your suggestion of social networking within an email environment. Email is the Post Office that everyone visits each day so it makes sense to add features that enable meaningful networking.

I've been in Linkedin for quite some time but never had the motivation to figure out how it works. I consider myself very competent in managing email (including Outlook) so adding features that promoted social networking within this environment would make sense.

There are enough social networks without Outlook jumping into the game.

Outlook is a clunky application with average performance at best. It enough issues trying to integrate the Business Contact Manager. Anything further would bring it to a stand still.

I am more interested in apps that streamline comms based on relevance, rather than try to out-guess who I want connected with whom.

Social networking is a cultural issue at the core, with Information Technology as one of many means. Software cannot over-ride manners. This is why marketing efforts on the telephone have generally come to grief. The average list of contact emails is a mix of professional acquaintances for specific domains, and some purely personal ones. A person may welcome an invitation from a physician to join a group on a relevant health issue, but may feel violated if the good doctor uses his or her mail system to promote extraneous interests. Friends may be entirely put-off by veiled attempts to make money out of bar-buddies. Web 2.0 should follow face-to-face customer engagement if it is to work. It is also possible, though it takes time, to build an audience through helpful information in a search engine optimized format. Spam is tempting but not productive.

Thanks John. I've really noticed Outlook is changing. I just use it for email. I downloaded a plugin actually today called Outlook Track it. Found it on http://www.outlooktrackit.com. And it gave me a toolbar where you can set reminders to follow up to emails.